Water-bombing chopper to aid fire fight

A water-bombing helicopter will boost firefighting efforts in Victoria's far south-west during summer.

The Country Fire Authority (CFA) operations manager for Region Four, Peter Novotny, says grass in the area is drying out and fires in timber plantations are also a concern.

About 4,500 hectares of bushland was burnt when fires were sparked by lightning near Casterton and Dartmoor last week.

Mr Novotny says the water-bombing helicopter will be stationed at the Hamilton airport.

"For this season we'll have a medium-sized rotary aircraft that's able to do firebombing operations, to pick up water at a farm dam or some sort of other water supply and deliver that to the fire perhaps many times over in a short space of time," he said.

Meanwhile, the CFA says its firefighting operations have not been affected by disruptions to phones and internet in south-west Victoria.

Most landline and mobile phone services in the region have been restored, after a fire destroyed cables at the Telstra exchange in Warrnambool two weeks ago.

Mr Novotny says plans were already in place to deal with last week's fires.

"We've had to revert to alternative arrangements, use of the Optus network, use of 4G modem cards, use of satellite phones and of course the radio network," he said.

"We're unaffected in the dispatch arrangements, our pager network that CFA operates continues to work throughout this incident but it's definitely been a hiccup."